Working Sprinklers?

We've lived in our for 4 winters now. The first 2 years, we had no sprinkler problems, but last year was a different story. Sometime in January or February they burst and flooded our yard. We then found out, we were supposed to turn them off at the street. We had never been told that nor had we been given the key to do so. (My excuse is that I'm from the East where we don't even use sprinklers). Last year, we also put our back yard in, so we had all of those sprinklers to do as well. I had several people come share their opinions and offer advice. Then one day, when I was determined to get them repaired, Aaron showed up and asked if he could help. He gave his whole day to fixing our mess. Unfortunately, that was not the end of our trials. We had heads that broke, one got mowed over, we had valves continue to break. I have no idea how much money we spent on sprinkler parts last year and I really don't want to try to figure it out, as I'd probably just pave the yard instead. Then, we went on vacation to Maine for 2 weeks during the period when Eagle Mountain forbade lawn watering, so it shouldn't have been a big deal. While we were gone, Aaron called b/c he was bailing water out of our basement. I guess another head broke and flooded the window well and eventually into the basement. Argh! will it ever end? In the fall, I took all the precautions to winterize, blew the lines, turned the water off, opened all the valves in hopes of no issues this year.


Ok, now it's 2008. I decided last Saturday to turn on my sprinklers. I turned them on with no problems except 2 heads that needed adjusting. I fixed the heads and then turned them back on, and soon there was a geyser from my box. NOOOOOOOOOOO! Yep, one of the valves had split and was shooting water everywhere. I thought this may be the beginning of sprinkler repair season all over again. Well, last night I finally had time to fix it. Believe it or not, it works. I can't even imagine what my summer will be like if I don't have to spend every weekend doing sprinkler repairs. So wish me luck that my good fortune will continue : )